Romans 6:3-4

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Paul suggests another reason not to continue living in sin: the meaning of our baptism. Paul has a confused audience wondering when they died to sin. They don’t remember dying to sin. And this angers Paul. He thinks these people should already know this! Surely they knew the meaning of baptism. Paul had never been to Rome, but he knows that all Christians have been baptized by the Holy Spirit. And he knew that water baptism was a symbol of the union with Christ. And so Paul asks his audience to reflect on their baptism, which was a symbol of their union with Christ, and not only with Christ personally, but also to His death. We died to sin, not when we were water-baptized, but when we were united to Christ and His work and His death by faith, which came when we were baptized, or regenerated, by the Holy Spirit. And even more, we were united also to His life! And this newness of life, this break with sin is not something temporary, but it’s permanent because Christ was raised never to die again, and so we who are united to Christ are dead to sin and alive to God (Galatians 2:20).

Note the historical event of Christ’s death at Calvary as the time when God saw us in Christ, so that His death was our death. This was the accomplishment of our death with Christ. Note that we were united to Him by faith in our lifetime experience, so that our death with Him became personal to us. This was the application to us through faith of what God accomplished for us at Calvary. We were baptized in Christ’s name. This was the signification of our death with Christ. So there was the historical accomplishment of our death with Christ at Calvary, then the experiential application of our death with Christ by faith, then the symbolic signification of our death with Christ by baptism: Accomplishment in history, application by faith, signification through baptism.

Some folks, like Jack Cottrell, a teacher at Cincinnati Bible College, where Bob Russell and Dave Stone were educated, might say here that baptism does not merely signify our death in Christ; rather, baptism effects or causes or brings about our death in Christ. He has said, “Baptism is not the symbol of our death with Christ, but the instrument of our death with Christ. We have been buried with Him through baptism into death. Baptism is when and how we died with Christ, and before baptism, we were not united with Christ and not justified and not saved. Those who say that our union with Christ in His death, and thus our own death to sin, occurred before baptism are simply not taking the text at its word. Every Christian has come within the scope of this sin-destroying force of the death of Christ; we have tapped into its lethal power. When did we do this? In our baptism. There is absolutely no indication that this union with Christ in His death happened as soon as we believed or repented. We did not believe into His death; we did not repent into His death.” I am not sure whether or not this is the view of Southeast.

Nevertheless, I do not agree with Cottrell. Here’s an analogy to explain: All of us who have put on the ring of marriage have, by putting on this ring, forsaken all others to cleave only to our wives. Therefore by this ring I am united to my wife alone and dead to all others. Now you could press the language and say, “Aha, it was the actual putting on the ring that caused your forsaking all others and cleaving to your wife alone. You said it explicitly: ‘By this ring, I am united to my wife alone.’ What could be plainer? The ring does it all.” But that is not what I would mean by these words. I would mean that putting on the ring is a sign of my forsaking all others and cleaving only to her. The decisive leaving and cleaving is in the promise, the covenant, the vows. “I promise you my faithfulness.” Then comes the ring, the symbol. In that analogy, the vows stand for faith in Christ, and the ring stands for baptism. And the point is that we often talk this way. We often speak of the symbol as though it brings about what it only signifies. It seems only logical that Paul was doing the same.